XRP whales are facing accusations of manipulating liquidity by moving billions of tokens to influence price and target leveraged positions. Cheeky Crypto, an analyst firm, claims the $1.45 resistance level is a deliberate liquidity zone engineered by large holders. The allegation centers on a 1.16 billion XRP token supply overhang and a hidden market pipe designed to trap short sellers and late longs alike.
The $1.45 liquidity zone
According to the Cheeky Crypto analysis, the supply overhang isn't accidental. They describe a deliberate liquidity zone at $1.45 — a price level where whales have stacked sell orders and parked tokens in off-exchange wallets. The hidden pipe refers to a mechanism that can rapidly feed tokens onto order books, crushing upward momentum. XRP's native automated market maker (AMM) is also creating a supply-demand imbalance, further tightening the liquidity picture.
Exchange withdrawals spike
On Wednesday, 34.94 million XRP tokens were withdrawn from exchanges in a single day — worth more than $115 million. That's a significant move that typically signals accumulation or a shift to cold storage. But given the whale dynamics, some traders read it as a squeeze preparation: remove supply from exchanges, then let the sell wall do the work.
Institutions absorbing the pressure
Institutional players are reportedly absorbing sell pressure through XRP ETFs. The clearest signal came from Goldman Sachs, which disclosed a $153.8 million position in spot XRP ETFs. That's real money from a mainstream bank. Separately, Ondo Finance, JPMorgan Kinexys, Mastercard, and Ripple successfully executed a near real-time cross-border redemption of tokenized US Treasuries using XRPL. The test shows the ledger can handle institutional-grade settlement — which might explain why tokenized assets on XRPL surged to approximately $3.03 billion, a 45% increase over the past 30 days. Stablecoin value on the network is nearing $498 million, with transfer volume rising.
Regulatory tailwind in the Senate
The US Senate Banking Committee is working on the Clarity Act, legislation that could formally classify XRP as a digital commodity. If passed, it would remove much of the regulatory ambiguity that has hung over the token since the SEC lawsuit. That prospect may be why institutional money is trickling in despite the whale games at $1.45.
The real question is whether the Clarity Act moves before the next wave of whale activity — or whether the whales have already priced in a commodity classification and are simply milking the volatility until then.
